Francisco Clapera

Here he created casta paintings, a distinctive Mexican genre that depicts in sets of consecutive images scenes of racial mixing among the Indians, Spaniards and Africans who lived in the Spanish colony.

[1] Born in Barcelona, Clapera traveled to Peru on a ship headed by Viceroy Manuel Guiror.

[3] There, he met Jeronimo Antonio Gil, the first director of the Royal Academy of San Carlos.

[2] As a Spaniard living in the New World, Clapera's experience at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid made him unique.

[3] His incorporation of European artistic techniques, such as the contrapposto, made his casta paintings more dynamic than those of his Mexican contemporaries.